In Memoriam (2)
Posted 24 May, 2007 in randomness
Memorial Day is coming up. Recently, various good TV shows that were canceled too soon have kept popping up in conversations I’ve had, so I thought this holiday weekend would be a fitting time to honor my favorite fallen shows.* They left us too soon. May they rest in peace – and hopefully, one day in our DVD players.
Stark Raving Mad – According to the IMDB, this show was about a novelist facing a bad case of writer’s block, and the editor who’s trying to re-inspire him. I don’t remember that, but I do remember Tony Shalhoub being weird, which is what he does best (see Monk). Doogie Howser was also in the show, and spent most of his time making shocked and frustrated facial expressions when Tony Shalhoub was being especially peculiar.
Dead Like Me – This show followed a group of dead people who, rather than going to heaven or hell, have been chosen to be Reapers – people who collect the souls of those who’ve just died. They’re a pissed-off bunch of folks who don’t have a nice thing to say about anyone. Ellen Muth, who starred in the show, slowly got skinnier and skinner over the course of two seasons, until I wondered why the costume designers kept putting her in such tight clothes. Mandy Patinkin - who is cool when he doesn’t sing; Inigo Montoya was a great character – was the annoyingly wise and advice-filled boss. Callum Blue was the token Cockney sparrer, and Laura Harris played Daisy Adair, an undead slut from the 1920s. Mandy Patinkin gave them their daily Reaper assignments on Post-Its. They all hung out in a diner and bitched at each other. It was good.
It’s Like, You Know – I think this show was about a writer who’d just moved to LA from New York. All I really cared about were the bons mots spilling forth from Chris Eigeman’s pouty lips. I loved him in Barcelona, and he plays the same sort of character in this show – a guy with a perpetually furrowed brow who ponders important questions like what’s above the subtext (the text) and gets irritated when people use the word “literally” wrong. Evan Handler played his rich, lazy friend Shrug. Handler was also Hurley’s imaginary friend Dave on Lost. A post-nose-job Jennifer Grey was also in the show - her new nose makes her unrecognizable and completely generic looking. It was also nice to see AJ Langer, who played batshit-crazy teenage ho Rayanne in My So-Called Life.
Sports Night – This talky Aaron Sorkin sitcom (without a laugh track, thank God) starred half the cast of West Wing and Studio 60. Peter Krause and Josh Charles played Casey McCall and Dan Rydell, which actually sound like sportscaster names. Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy, the husband-and-wife acting team also known as Filliam H. Muffman, were castmembers too. Everyone spoke really, really fast and threw zingers at one another. They were also all much smarter than anyone who works on a sports show in real life. It was grittier and less calculatedly heartstring-tugging than The West Wing and Studio 60.
Action - Jay Mohr stars as Peter Dragon, a film exec who’s desperately trying to hang on to his career by making a movie called Beverly Hills Gun Club. His character’s basically the proto-Ari Gold – he’ll do pretty much anything to get his movie made, including letting a gay dude blow him. The show’s cynical, dark and full of dirty jokes. It only ran for nine episodes, probably because of those three traits. IMDB reminded me of one funny moment – “Sandra Bullock berating our hero for making a tape of the two of them having sex and selling it as “While You Were Sleeping On My Face.”
Linc’s – There’s not much online about this 1999 Showtime series, nor can I remember a whole lot about it. I do know it was set in an African-American neighborhood at a bar that the title character owned, Pam Grier was involved somehow, there was a sassy female bartender named CeCe who was trying to come to terms with the fact that she fancied an old white dude, and that, according to IMDB, Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje, a.k.a. the magnificent Mr. Eko, was in it for a while. I am sad I missed those episodes.
The PJs – This show was actually not all that good. Eddie Murphy created it, and he voiced the character of Thurgood Stubbs, a landlord in the projects. The series was done in Claymation. The stories were kind of boring, but they did sometimes feature an animated crackhead, which almost made up for it.
Rude Awakening – This one ran for three seasons on Showtime. Sherilyn Fenn played a washed-up child star and recovering alcoholic who is also a slut. Lynn Redgrave played her horrible mother. It was full of smut and gratuitous boob shots. Rain Pryor appeared in a couple of episodes as Sherilyn’s lesbian friend, and I’m also informed by IMDB that Mario van Peebles was in the show! I don’t remember that part at all. The writing was cheerfully dirty and sarcastic, and Sherilyn wore cute outfits and actually had boobs and an ass, unlike most other female TV stars.
Once and Again – This is another show from Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick (they did My So-Called Life) that’s filled with sometimes poignant, sometimes hideously cheesy moments of interpersonal awkwardness. Sela Ward and Billy Campbell play a couple who’ve both recently ended marriages, both have teenage children, and are trying to learn how to date again in their late 40s. Both Ward and Campbell managed to play their parts with a bit of humor, which tempered the show’s tendency to be syrupy. The angsty teenagers included Shane West, and Evan Rachel Wood, who would go on to become Marilyn Manson’s homewrecking jailbait girlfriend.
The Restaurant – This was good because it was so horrible. To summarize: Young celebrity chef and dumbass-about-town Rocco DiSpirito stars in a reality show about the new pizza joint he’s opening in NYC, then proceeds to commit career suicide on camera by doing more schmoozing than cooking. Jeffrey Chodorow, the restaurant’s co-owner, is also not very nice, but at least he knows how to run a business, so you’re glad when he comes to take over from Rocco. Rocco’s staff sasses him in amusing ways, like referring to him as “Captain Douche Bag,” loudly enough for him to hear them. Eventually the restaurant tanks, Jeffrey goes to court and has Rocco banned from entering it, and the show gets canceled. The end, possibly also of Rocco’s 15 minutes of fame.
Ah, good TV, how we miss thee. There is hope, though; last night’s Lost finale kicked ass, and Heroes’ last episode was almost as good. There are always going to be shows like Ghost Whisperer and the upcoming Geico Caveman series, but as long as My Name is Earl, The Office and Everybody Hates Chris stay on the air for a while, TV won’t suck too badly.
*Some of my readers might be saying to themselves, “I’m not sure Memorial Day is an appropriate time to remember canceled TV series. Perhaps Kate should be thinking instead of our troops who were killed in battle.” I’d like to introduce these folks to a new form of humor known as sarcasm. Perhaps you’ve heard of it, or maybe not. It’s popular in Britain. For more information, visit the Wikipedia entry. I assure you, I do not hate our troops.